Joined: Sat May 11, 2013 9:05 amPosts: 552Location: Sittin' downtown at the railway station, one toke over the line.

Wow, really. Look, you spend enough time on these forums you know that Latios answers all kinds of questions and is always helpful, polite and respectful. You think he's been lurking here for years waiting for someone to say something bad about about Valve/Steam and then jump on them? I made a joke that was meant to be a compliment and I'm afraid it got misinterpreted but I mean it when I say that Latios's answers are always well researched and reasoned. How are you going to get mad at a guy that took the time out to do the homework you could have been doing instead of going in to meltdown mode?

It turns out in the end that there is something wrong with the way Valve identifies accounts active in its Steam Marketplace. Valve engineers have acknowledged the problem, but do not know how to fix it. Their only solution is to ignore the prompt, meaning customers cannot participate in the Marketplace whatsoever without disclosing Social Security information, regardless of the federal guidelines.

I would sooner trust Jerry Sandusky to babysit my kids than turn my SSN over to Valve.

It's a shame they have managed to gain so much market share in the digital distribution landscape. Too much of Valve's business operations is in the hands of teens and millennials lacking basic interpersonal skills and business acumen.

When a company has to hire kids to harass customers looking for help, there's a fucking problem.

It turns out in the end that there is something wrong with the way Valve identifies accounts active in its Steam Marketplace. Valve engineers have acknowledged the problem, but do not know how to fix it. Their only solution is to ignore the prompt, meaning customers cannot participate in the Marketplace whatsoever without disclosing Social Security information, regardless of the federal guidelines.

I would sooner trust Jerry Sandusky to babysit my kids than turn my SSN over to Valve.

It's a shame they have managed to gain so much market share in the digital distribution landscape. Too much of Valve's business operations is in the hands of teens and millennials lacking basic interpersonal skills and business acumen.

When a company has to hire kids to harass customers looking for help, there's a fucking problem.

I concur wholeheartedly. Valve annoys me greatly as Steam still seems like a kludge to me and they haven't put out a truly innovative game in eons (hell, the only games they seem to make come from buying out indies who have a game based on a quirky concept).

It's absurd that both Valve and I have to report tax info for my sales to the IRS (It's insane that either of us have to...). Why the 200 sale trigger-point? What makes 200 so different from 199?

Quote:

On something kind of related, kind of not, pretty much a lot of businesses I've applied for are "at will", meaning you can't join a union and they can fire you if they feel like for no reason whatsoever.

Sounds like the way it should be. It never felt right to me that there existed organizations-unions-that held businesses in strangleholds, reaping massive rewards while not taking any risks. After my dealings with them I get a little sick to my stomach when I hear the "U-word", especially if it is proceeded by "teamsters'".

It's absurd that both Valve and I have to report tax info for my sales to the IRS (It's insane that either of us have to...).

No it isn't. The IRS is responsible for handling the taxation of your income, regardless of how you get it. And any third party responsible for earning you money has to send you a tax form regarding it. Since Valve is acting as a third party and keeping a record of transactions, they're better equipped to send you a correct form for reporting rather than you are. And the reason why they need your SSN? Because if the IRS asks for said form, then they have to know that it belongs to you. Between an IRS audit and Valve having my SSN, I'd rather take the chance on Valve having my SSN.

... All in all, why are you guys bitching about this? From what I saw with the store, it's just for pointless items that sell for like pennies a piece. You don't like it? Don't use it. At least it's better than eBay, who charges you a seller's fee for several weeks REGARDLESS if you keep selling or not. Or in other words, don't get into any business of selling unless you're prepared for a bunch of tax crap to follow you.

Some bug or glitch randomly and erroneously identifies Steam customers as having exceeded set sales limits in the Community Marketplace, triggering a request for Social Security information. To be clear, these requests are clearly in error, citing customers who have never used the Community Marketplace. You have been strangely committed to denying this is even possible, and possessed of a fervor inconsistent with an ostensibly neutral third party.

Valve engineers have acknowledged the issue, but can or will not resolve it.

Customers aren't supposed to bring attention to genuine problems with Steam. Steam moderators are told to keep legitimate issues with the service out of the forums, and they have a couple of tricks they will commonly employ. Customers with genuine issues are considered "trouble-makers."

Friends and clan mates of certain Steam moderators will harass customers with legitimate problems in an attempt to provoke an emotional response that both discredits the customer's complaint and provides grounds to ban the customer if he pushes the issue. This is a very common practice in the "Help & Support" forums.

Moderators will "clean" threads, editing content for themselves and their friends, to cast "trouble-maker" customers in the worst possible light.

When customers don't take the bait they are given, they get a locked thread, with our without a warning that account issues aren't allowed in the forums. Ironically, if a customer reports an account issue of his own making, that sort of thread is allowed. Anyone can post about his account being hacked because he visited some site claiming to sell cheap Steam keys, and subsequently receive a generous dose of finger wagging but no warning regarding "account issues." On the other hand, if Steam malfunctions somehow, if customers are genuinely cheated or wronged, then the thread isn't allowed. It's all about appearances. Valve and Steam must look faultless and flawless, always.

There are those moderators less heavy-handed, content to simply merge or delete threads making Steam look bad, without concomitant harassment. This is actually the more common practice outside the "Help & Support" area of the Steam forums.

The reaction of Steam community moderators and their friends to the original problem (citing sales figures that do not exist) lead to the impression the situation could be intentional and possibly illegal. Yes, calling customers liars or stupid is considered bad customer service by civilized people around the world. And that sort of behavior reflects directly back at Valve and everyone working there.

You're changing the subject. The "tl;dr" point in the very first post was: "What does Valve want with Social Security information, and why are they resorting to trickery to get it?" I answered it.

The more appropriate question at this point is "Why isn't Valve fixing their 'did you sell a bunch of crap on the store' flag and why does their mod team suck?" I dunno. Probably because they're too busy jerking off on SteamOS.

Also that community is full of idiots anyway. While I did touch it a few weeks ago because I bought an Ubisoft game and I should've known better, I pretty much decided to avoid any reason to visit it when I saw the ARMA II board in the 2012 summer sale. It was nothing but topics of people whining that ARMA II went down to $18, not the $10 or less they were hoping for because all they wanted to play was DayZ.

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